Posted
by
Roblimoon Thursday October 25, 2012 @11:20AM
from the choosing-between-science-and-some-hairy-guy-in-the-sky dept.

In this video interview (with transcript), Dr. Richard Dawkins discusses religious exceptionalism with regard to the teaching of evolution, and the chilling effect of fundamentalism on the production of scientists and engineers. He says, "I can think of no other reason why, of all the scientific facts that people might disagree with or disbelieve, [evolution] is the one they pick on. Physics gets through OK. Chemistry gets through Ok. But not biology/geology, and I think it's got to be because of religion." He also addresses the recent comments from Rep. Paul Broun, who denounced evolution and the Big Bang theory as "lies straight from the pit of hell," and the recent Innocence of Muslims video that led to unrest in various parts of the world. "Freedom of speech is something that Islamic theocracies simply do not understand. They don't get it. They're so used to living in a theocracy, that they presume that if a film is released in the United States, the United States Government must be behind it! How could it be otherwise? So, they need to be educated that, actually, some countries do have freedom of speech and government is not responsible for what any idiot may do in the way of making a video." He also has some very insightful comments about religion as one of the most arbitrary labels by which people divide themselves when involved in conflict. Hit the link below for the video.

Slashdot: In a recent Gallup poll, it's been shown that the American
population has shown no change over the past thirty years in their
acceptance of evolution as truth. Why do you think that is?

Dr. Richard Dawkins: Well, I'm aware of that. It's a disturbing fact. This
is Gallup poll results. It's slightly unfortunate in a way, that the way
that they phrased the question in that particular Gallup poll is to say, on
the one hand, mankind was created more or less in its present form some
time during the last 10,000 years. Or.. the right answer.. evolution.
Or, God had nothing to do with it. And, that "God had nothing to do with
it" kind of puts people off. Nevertheless, that's the way Gallup phrased
it. And, you're right that the poll hasn't changed. It's somewhere
between 40%, 45% consistently.

I think religion is to blame. I mean, I can think of no other reason why,
of all the scientific facts that people might disagree with or disbelieve,
this is the one they pick on. Physics gets through OK. Chemistry gets
through OK. But, not biology/geology and I think it's got to be because of
religion.

Slashdot: Is that something you think can be easily
remedied through education?

Dawkins: It should be. Education is the answer to the problem. I think
that scientists are somewhat to blame for not getting out more and bringing
their subject to people. So, I think we're not entirely blameless of that.
The evidence is absolutely clear, isn't it? No doubt about it. It's not
the sort of thing that one can be at all doubtful about, once you've seen
the evidence. And, clearly, most people haven't seen the evidence. You've
only got to talk to people who call themselves creationists to realize they haven't the faintest
idea what the evidence is, or indeed, what evolution is.

Slashdot: Do you think there's a better way that people could be shown
what the evidence is?

Dawkins: Well, there are books. There are plenty of television
documentaries. There are plenty of websites that you can go look up Q &
A and things. There's quite a lot of stuff out there.
I'm not quite sure what that better way would look like, but I'd be
grateful for any suggestions.

Slashdot: Earlier this year, the Tennessee State Legislature passed a
law [allowing] public schools to teach the controversy with regard to
evolution, global warming and a few other scientific theories. Much more
recently, Representative Paul Broun, a Republican in Georgia, said that
evolution, embryology, the big bang theory--are "lies straight from the pit
of Hell." How does that tie in with the educational aspect? It seems to
me, you're working at two problems. You have students who are not
educated, with respect to evolution, the big bang theory, and similar
things. And, those students grow up to be voters and legislators, who are
now contributing the the problem.

Dawkins: It's very evident that Representative Paul Broun is uneducated,
ignorant, probably stupid, too, which is very sad. It's very sad that
somebody as ill-qualified to hold high office as that has been elected.
There was a rather amusing tweet I saw on Twitter, which went something
like this. "Doctor, you say that brushing teeth is a good way to keep them
healthy. I say smearing them with chocolate is. Let's teach the
controversy!" And the fact is, there is no controversy about evolution.
It's a fact, demonstrated beyond all possible doubt by scientific evidence.
Every qualified person who looked at the evidence agrees that it's an
absolutely secure fact. There is no controversy to teach.

Slashdot: What is the effect, do you think, of this unwillingness to
commit to science, on the production of scientists and engineers. In other
words, if you suddenly could wave a magic wand and solve all these issues,
do you think we would see more engineers and scientists come out of this
country?

Dawkins: Yes. I mean, it's an odd fact that the United States is, beyond
any doubt, the preeminent scientific power in the world. No doubt about
it. Measure it with Nobel Prizes, with numbers of scientific papers
published, and so on. It is the world leader. Yet, at the same time, it's
being dragged backwards by nearly 50% of the population, who are anti-
intellectual, anti-education, despise people who have education, and it's
a big problem. Fortunately, the 50% who are doing the right thing are so
good that they are still pulling the country in the right direction.

Slashdot: Is it important to focus on the United States and similar
countries in this matter? Or, for example, South Korea recently had a
win, actually, in which they kept the teaching of
creationism out of their school textbooks. Is it more important to focus
on the larger, more established educational systems, or to get into the
smaller ones before that?

Dawkins: Yeah. I wouldn't say more important, but it sort of hits one in
the gut, rather, that a country like the United States, which is so ahead
of the field in half the country should be so way backward in the other
half. It does rather stand out like a sore thumb in world statistics, but
it's still important to teach in other parts of the world. Particularly,
the Islamic part of the world, which is shrouded in darkness, really,
educationally speaking, in this field.

Dawkins: I've only seen the trailer for that video. It's quite
astonishingly badly done, as everybody agrees. So, the fact that the
Islamic propagandists decided to pick on that one is extremely unfortunate.
They should simply have ignored it. Everybody else would have ignored if
they had. So, that's a deplorable incident. On the other hand, freedom of
speech is very important. Freedom of speech is something that Islamic
theocracies simply do not understand. They don't get it. They're so used
to living in a theocracy, that they presume that if a film is released in
the United States, the United States Government must be behind it! How
could it be otherwise? So, they need to be educated that, actually, some
countries do have freedom of speech and government is not responsible for
what any idiot may do in the way of making a video.

Slashdot: I want to read a quote from an article you wrote earlier this
year. You said, "My point is not that religion itself is the motivation
for wars, murders and terrorist attacks, but that religion is the principal
label, and the most dangerous one, by which a "they" as opposed to a "we"
can be identified at all." Now, nations can be conquered and nationalities
can be merged. Racism is slowly getting eroded by education. Do you feel
that religion can be educated in a similar way?

Dawkins: The context of the quote which you just read out was probably
Northern Ireland, where I had been upbraided for suggesting that the Northern
Ireland Conflict is about religion. People said, "no, no, it's about
politics. It's about economics. It's about centuries of oppression."
Which it is. But, when one group is said to be oppressing another, there
has to be some label by which the groups can identify themselves. Now, in
countries where there are racial differences, like South Africa, it's
easy to see which group you belong to. In countries like Belgium, where
there's a linguistic friction between those who speak French and those who
speak Dutch, once again, language is the barrier, is the label by which
people can identify the "them" or "us." But, in Northern Ireland — and I
think probably in the Indian subcontinent — the predominant label, by far,
is religion. So, that's how people identify the "them" and "us."

If you think about it, it's not surprising, because psychologists have
shown that if you take, for example, children, and give them arbitrary
labels — you arbitrarily divide the children into two halve — and give these
ones orange t-shirts and those ones green t-shirts, and give them various
other labels, they will develop loyalties to those of their own labeled
group. And that happens very quickly. Now, if you imagine that you set up
a rule, such that oranges only marry oranges, and greens only marry greens,
and children of orange couples only ever go to orange schools, and children
of green couples only go to green schools, and you carry that on for 300
years, what have you got? I mean, you've got a deep, deep division in
society. And if it's possible for one of those two groups to oppress the
other economically, they will. And then you'll get all sorts of vendettas
and feuds developing.

Yep. I prefer people who are agnostic about Santa Clause too. All those Santa Deniers really get on my nerves... so full of certainty and dismissive of people who believe in Santa. Bunch of religiously anti-santa people if you ask me.

I have to point out that Richard Dawkins was very wrong about one thing, that religion is an arbitrary label behind which people divide themselves. Religion is not so arbitrary in that at all but, has often been specifically selected by psychopathic rulers in order that their people will have less qualms about slaughtering adjoining nations and their heathen non-believers. This slaughter having nothing to do with religion and everything to do with empowering the psychopathic leader by feeding their lusts and ego's, their ability to have the power of life and death over millions, to maim and slaughter them in battle and to publicly torture them to death after wards, all while the psychopathic ruler watches on sating baser sexual and gorging lusts.

Now that is the true nature of the growth of monotheism, to ensure psychopathic leaders could pervert those religions upon a global scale for conquest et al. Pay very close attention to how often a religion controlled the psychopathic heads of monarchical states and how often the psychopathic heads of monarchical states controlled religion. When in doubt and push came to shove it was priest who ended up being decapitated not royalty. Ahh, religion the tool of tyrants, used far to often do exactly the opposite of what the religion claims to promote, even to this very bloody and I do mean bloody day.

I have to point out that Richard Dawkins was very wrong about one thing, that religion is an arbitrary label behind which people divide themselves.

On the other hand, it's no more or less arbitrary as any other label which has been used over the years. "Race" or "ethnicity" are just as arbitrary and, indeed, they've often been historically synonymous.

In Northern Ireland, "Protestant" and "Catholic" started off as proxies for "English" and "Irish" respectively (and later, "republicans" and "loyalists" respectively). It's much the same as in the former Yugoslavia, where Croatian == Catholic, Serbian == Orthodox and Bosnian == Muslim.

Having said that, you've hit the nail on the head in a grand-sweeping-view-with-lots-of-caveats kind of way. I would argue that Constantine I of Rome was probably a "true believer", for example. Nonetheless, as a general statement, when religion is used as a tool of division by powerful interests, it is invariably a smokescreen for some person or group's power trip, and it's invariably the religion (rather than the powerful interest) which ends up with most of the negative consequences.

It's even visible in the current US election cycle. Just look at the US evangelical/fundamentalist church's endorsement of Mitt Romney, a Mormon. As much as they talk about religion, when push comes to shove, they're willing to compromise on religion. Because it's not really about religion, and everyone knows it [wordpress.com]. This can only end up badly for US evangelical/fundamentalist Christians. And whatever you think of US evangelical Christians, nobody deserves to be treated like that.

What's really interesting right now, though, is that as the influence of organised religion declines (being replaced with a combination of disorganised religion and non-religion), the "good causes" being perverted by powerful interests seem to be changing along with it.

The war in Iraq was launched on the pretext of "freedom" and "democracy". "Freedom" and "democracy" are excellent things. That makes those ideals ripe for, as you say, psychopathic leaders perverting them for conquest et al.

It takes a strong belief (not faith) in your position to claim to be an atheist.

Atheist == without belief in a god or gods. So, no, it's not about belief. It's about lack of belief.

All it takes to be an atheist is an honest response of "no" to the question, "Do you harbor or hold any belief in a god or gods?"

Any position past that isn't definitive of atheism; it's definitive of something else. Because atheism is dead-simple: it's the state of lacking belief. No more, no less; there's no dogma, no catechism, no holy book, no structure, no leaders, no followers, no morals, no ethics, no laws. Any of that shows up, it can be directly attributed to something other than atheism. Which is fine. Where the problem arises is when someone looks at more than the no-belief state and then ascribes that issue to atheism.

Atheism is strictly a one trick pony. Anything other than a lack of belief in a god or gods is coming from somewhere else.

There were protests in almost every single Muslim majority country [wikipedia.org] without few exceptions (such as Singapore, which had it blocked), as well as some western ones, such as France, where violence also broke out. Was it because of the video? I'm not so sure. A week after the video was released the french satirical paper Charlie Hebdo released cartoons that were by far more vulgar than Innocence of Muslims (for example, depicting Muhammad naked). There was almost no response at all to that. Either they're becoming desensitized to cartoons or as many have commented, this was just yet another excuse to blame the foreign devil yell "death to America", "itbach al yahud" and run rampage burning stuff down.

I, on the other hand, see another correlation.... Singapore has one of the fastest internet connections in the area. I guess they just looked at this flick of Bernadette Rostenkowski and realised that being violent is not cool.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlQ0NBwaqjcFor the peoploe without broadband, here is whet she said: Being mean is lame. What's cool is being nice!Oh, and for all the people who are STILL convinced that "being offended" is a good reason to petrol-bomb embassies and the like, watch this

I'm an Iranian and let me tell you...99.9% of the Iranian population doesn't give a damn to the movie or its content.
Hey...Youtube is even filtered in Iran. What CNN showed was just a show organized by the Iranian regime to make _you_
(yes you) believe people care. I mean, does the fact that the foreign media was allowed to make reports from this "protest",
not seem fishy to you? How come during all the protest in the Iranian green movement CNN and other media were not allowed
to make reports !?

Can you provide ONE example of his Bigotry? I can name thousands of example how Religions around the world are Bigots to non-believers! Mr. Dawkins doesn't go around beheading people for having different beliefs.

As for "beheading", can you name something within Darwinian Naturalism that argues against it, if it increases the propagation of the behead-ers DNA? Stalin certainly didn't see that reason for restraint that isn't there, and you can easily google millions of examples of his own citiz

It's popular to conflate Stalin's insane need to kill people who were "out to get him" with atheism in general. Apparently he killed no atheists, had a sober mind, and his people weren't terrified of whether they would be the next ones to be dragged off to gulags. And yet, mysteriously, when the same thing happens in religious circles, it's always pinned on one or two people, not the whole religion.

In other words, we KNOW atheists can be brutal murders and dictators. We KNOW religious people can be the same way. And yet, we get dragged down by semantics simply because people are people, regardless of their faith or lack thereof. I would recommend everyone involved in these petty disputes stop leaning on this crutch. It's enough to say "look, both theists and atheists are perfectly capable of inhuman atrocities" without trying to blame the entire camp on a few nuts.

If you wish to point claims of revisionism, you first have to stop revising history yourself by using logical fallacies.

It's popular to conflate Stalin's insane need to kill people who were "out to get him" with atheism in general. Apparently he killed no atheists, had a sober mind, and his people weren't terrified of whether they would be the next ones to be dragged off to gulags. And yet, mysteriously, when the same thing happens in religious circles, it's always pinned on one or two people, not the whole religion.

Actually, its pinned not only on the whole religion, but on "religion" as a concept. By lots of people. Including, you know, Richard Dawkins. The pointing out of which was sort of a major point earlier in this subthread.

The reason appropriate relative association between the actions and the worldview is that mass-killing is -directly contrary- to the principles of Christianity, and therefore, by definition, -not Christianity-.

If that were true, Christians would be deluded. I got death threats from Christians for being an atheist. Where are those "peaceful Christians" that you're talking about, and more to the point, where have they been hiding in the previous two millennia? Where are all the "true Scotsmen" you're talking about?

By contrast, mass-killing is -directly compatible- with Darwinian Naturalism, by reference to what it -is-

Name names or be known as a liar. Christians don't hate athiests, we fear them.

I've corrected this on your behalf.

Ever wonder where all that money Christians put in the collection baskets goes?

To the churches. Some of it does trickle down to humanitarian programs, and sometimes there are "Special Collections" in addition to the regular one, usually for some particular charity, but most of that money in the collection plate goes to running the church, not to the poor.

Can you name one single athiest charitable organization? I certainly can't think of one.

You apparently fail at Google, too. There are plenty of non-theistic charities, including several you may have encountered, but didn't realize they aren't non-theistic. Amnesty International? The American Civil Liberties Union? OxFam?Here's a list: http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Secular_charities [freethoughtpedia.com]

I think the point is that Stalinist Russia is more commonly know for some other -ism that isn't atheism. The implication is, of course, that the other -ism is the real reason for the persecution of religion in Stalinist Russia.

I'm sure if you spend some more time studying the subject you will figure it out. While it's true that USSR was officially atheist, the question you need to answer is why it was atheist and why they persecuted religion.

I think the point is that Stalinist Russia is more commonly know for some other -ism that isn't atheism. The implication is, of course, that the other -ism is the real reason for the persecution of religion in Stalinist Russia.

I'm sure if you spend some more time studying the subject you will figure it out. While it's true that USSR was officially atheist, the question you need to answer is why it was atheist and why they persecuted religion.

Well, if atheism gets a pass due to Russia being communist and other political details, then Christianity and Islam should also get a pass though most of history and even in many parts of the current day world as religion again is just being used as political and cultural device of control.

When it all comes down to it, lots of people blame religion for various things, but if they got rid of religion, the same things would still be carried out in the name of nationalism. Get rid of nationalism and you'll end up with other idealogies being the cause. Get rid of those and it will just default to clan and family matters. Get rid of them and you'll still have the same things being carried out over resources and money, which it could be argued that they are being done for even in all the other cases.

In my mind, Russia's athiesm was an instrument used to promote communism. Religion was explicitly seen as an impediment to proper communism, so it was opposed not because it was thought to be false, but because it was thought to be a tool of oppression used by the elite against the common man. In that case, it was not a root cause. I'm not even sure it was used as an excuse, it seems atheism was enforced because it was supposed to benefit communism.

If that's the case, then that's not at all the same situation as using religion as a cover for other issues. If religion adds legitimacy to illegitimate conflicts, is that not bad? Is that not a harmful effect of religion? A key difference here is that I find it hard to believe that you could ever rally thousands of atheists to riot under the pretense that the god they don't believe in has been insulted (or not sufficiently insulted). Atheism can be used a policy to harm theists, but I can't say I've run into anyone who could be motivated to do anything more than prattle on about how smart they are by their atheism.

Additionally, as others have pointed out previously, both communism and libertarianism (and probably many other -isms) are pretty much godless religions. They have sets of beliefs that their adherents must believe, and they even have their own "holy" books. They may belong to a superset that includes them and religion that is occasionally the problem.

Review the defined worldview of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a political entity, and the millions of people killed, internally and externally, by it, to correct your error.

This is a ridiculous claim. Stalin and friends were not motivated by there lack of belief in a God, they were psychopathic bastards following an ideological dogma. They had the writings of Karl Marx as their sacred books. They were killing everyone that they thought threatened their dogmatic truth, or they didn't like, because of their interpretation on Communism [1]. Their beliefs in Communism where a replacement for religion and in competition with religion. Atheism itself is not a replacement for religion, it makes no claims except "I don't believe there is a God." No sacred texts saying who goes to Heaven, who goes to Hell, who gets to live and who we must kill because of what they eat, love, say, wear, do, or believe.

And to preempt the whole Hitler thing, he was raised Catholic, alluded to God and a higher power all the time and seemed to believe all sorts of mystical stuff. He may not have been a "true" Christian, but he was no Atheist. And his foot solders were all Catholic and Lutherans. Again, all the killing was in the name of the Fatherland and patriotism fueled by ideology and dogma.

[1] I have no idea how close Stalin and friends actions were aligned with Marx's writings. It doesn't matter, all that matters is a group of people intent on enforcing their will on others through violence, in support of an unquestionable dogma.

The soviet union (and other similar crazies) didn't suppress religion because of some deeply held theological belief. they suppressed religion out of a desire to eliminate all competing power structures, both political, ethnic, historical and sociological. they wanted an absolute monopoly of influence over their citizens. once they had taken out the existing monarchy/elite the next most influential bodies in russian society were the churches. if there had been a widespread atheist church where every sunday folks gathered under one roof to talk about the non-existence of god and how they should do certain things in their daily lives to honor that fact (however rediculous that sounds) - that would also have been banned. they even decimated the striking power of the trade unions.

The French Revolution had nothing to do with religion or lack thereof.

There may sometime have been a revolution in France that had nothing to do with religion or the lack thereof, but the late 18th century revolution commonly referrred to as "The French Revolution", which featured the rejection of religion, the establishment of the "Cult of Reason", with its accompanying "Festival of Reason", and radical and violent dechristianization, certainly wasn't it.

I would like to point out that most of the people that Dawkins is allegedly bigoted against agree with him about most of the other people. The difference between Dawkins and most religious people is that they think that believing in any one of a thousand different gods is delusional, while he believes that believing in any one of a thousand and one different gods is delusional.

Stalin, Russian for "Man of steel"'s, real name was, Jughashvili, a Georgian name. In fact if not by design "Communism" with a BIG "C" is a form of state religion! and it folds neatly into a theory I've had for years that religion and government only work well when harshly suppressed by an educated secular population!

So it's not a delusion to claim that Eve was created from Adam's rib? Or that Mohammed ascended to the heavens on a magical horse? Or that when you drink wine in the Communion rite, it's actually the blood of Christ entering your body?

As for "beheading", can you name something within Darwinian Naturalism that argues against it, if it increases the propagation of the behead-ers DNA?

Natural selection is an explanation of biological evolution. It's not a system for morality; it's simply the way the universe works.

How should atheists call religious believers, then? People with special beliefs?

There is no way of saying that god does not exist without saying that all people who believe in god are delusional. But this is normal: anyone who claims that his god is the true god says that all the others are wrong and their believers are also delusional. If you want is us to keep completely mum about the issue? Of course we are not going to do that.

Most of these projections against religion, are, simply, an "Argument from the Never-existed" fallacy that doesn't even propose to offer hard metrics, such as statistics, for -relative- comparison on what is a -relative- normative question. Understandably so, since the atheist worldview would lose immediately and overwhelmingly if we introduced actual hard data, simply by reference to the 20'th Century alone.

I am always puzzled by arguments things like this. Are you saying that god exists because of all the advantages religion brings? That's quite a fallacy there.

Stamping out a biological diferences is very different from stamping out ignorance! Do you still believe the world is 6,000 years old? If not, should you blame so Bigot for changing your mind? Stupidity is the bi-product of ignorance.

Dawkins would have a name for himself with or without his opinions on religion. If you read his works, he has traveled the world trying very hard to understand religion and it's conflict with what he finds to be "very obvious principals of science."

I'm not faulting your observation about his general opinion on religion, I simply don't see it as a prejudicial thing. He's alluded to many of the benefits that religions have had in the formation of modern society. But today, on the balance are they doing more to enslave or to free mankind? Now that we have more advanced justice systems than "And eye for an eye; tooth for a tooth." is it time to put those old teachings to behind us and use our own reason, our own humanity to shape the next generation's world. I think Dawkins would argue "yes."

His arguments are predicated on the idea that we are ready to cast off "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." and can still retain "Love thy neighbor as thyself."

If you believe as he does, that we are, then it makes sense to focus on the problems caused by religion, and try to enrich the positive side of a secular state. I don't think anyone could argue that the Catholic Church doesn't do an amazing amount of good for impoverished African states. The question is, can we learn from their examples, adjust our foriegn aid policies to something nearly as good, but have the benefit of providing alternatives to the Rhythm Method in a country whose population has outstripped its food supply?

There is one difference between the two: religion is a choice, homosexuality is not.

They both involve orientations which have a demonstrated genetic predisposition and biological mechanism. They are also both used as labels for sets of behaviors which are choices (the propensity to make the choices are, of course, closely tied to the orientation, but also influenced by social context and other factors.)

Technically speaking religion is a belief and homosexuality is a sexual orientation. There's a difference between being born with a sexual attraction to the same sex and thinking that magic underwear makes you pure. You are free to call him a bigot for thinking that religion is doing more damage than good, however, it looks to me like you're devalueing the words "bigot" and "bigotry" when you use them in that fashion.

I find the argument carries as much weight as it would if you tried to tell me someone wh

The problem I see with Islamic theocracies - compared to the US constitution saying that we are endowed with unalienable rights by our creator - is that they get their laws from their god, not their rights. The are therefore free to trample on the rights of the individual in the name of their god. In the US, we are free to act like fools in the name of our god.

Rep. Broun needs to learn than belief in god and even Christianity does not mean the big bang or evolution are wrong. One cannot snap their fingers and make a cake; the ingredients must be mixed together and have heat applied. Why should god be able to circumvent the rules just because his cake is the universe?

Rep. Broun needs to learn than belief in god and even Christianity does not mean the big bang or evolution are wrong. One cannot snap their fingers and make a cake; the ingredients must be mixed together and have heat applied. Why should god be able to circumvent the rules just because his cake is the universe?

I think the obvious answer to that would be because he makes the rules.

But more importantly, while you are right that Christianity in the general sense is not incompatible with these two scientific theories, certainly a literal interpretation of the Bible is incompatible. You'd have to do some pretty liberal stretching of Genesis to make it fit what we know about evolution. It's a pretty serious problem for Christians that their infallible sacred text contains bad theories about the natural world.

You'd have to do some pretty liberal stretching of Genesis to make it fit what we know about evolution. It's a pretty serious problem for Christians that their infallible sacred text contains bad theories about the natural world.

Not really. You see, the way the entire Bible is written, the "literal" meaning isn't as simple as taking the meaning of the individual words and putting them together, and the Bible (from the very beginning of Christianity) has always been looked at that way. For example, if I say someone has the "heart of a lion", I don't mean their ventricular structure is that of a feline animal. Similarly, in Genesis when they list the "days" and the creation of the world, it's an attempt at describing what happened in basic human terms. There couldn't even have been a proper "day" before the creation of the sun. The creation of "light" before the sun/stars is usually taken to be, on the literal level, not referring to electromagnetic waves, but to angelic beings (and the separation of angels and demons).

In other words, it isn't a scientific text, and shouldn't be read as one. It isn't even trying to describe science, and it's a serious misreading of it to think it is. It's like reading the Iliad as a history book, and complaining about the inaccuracies. That's completely missing the point. Thinking you know better than the Bible because you know more science than it does is not impressive, because the Bible was never trying to describe science.

To take a more modern example: it's like the people who complain about the unscientific nature of lightsabers in Star Wars. Congratulations on being a pedant (or, if you're George Lucas, introducing midichlorians in an attempt to be "realistic" and ruining the series), but Star Wars was never about the science. Science is nearly the last thing it is about (and in that way, it's pretty similar to the Bible, and yes I did just compare the Bible to Star Wars).

In other words, it isn't a scientific text, and shouldn't be read as one. It isn't even trying to describe science, and it's a serious misreading of it to think it is.

That's all well and good, now how do we get my fellow citizens to stop voting for idiots that believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, that the US is a Christian nation, and that Satan (or God) created the earth with fossils in place to confuse (or test) people's faith?

Personally, I believe Jesus often used the word "poor" to encompass more than pecuniary deficits.

The right-wingers have given organized social hierarchy a bad name where not an outright vile stench. Douglas Adams had a good point: if they're obsessed and we're not, they win. I've noticed the figure 29% turning up repeatedly as the baseline fanatic vote, there's no need to, umm, get obsessive about obsession, they can be managed with a very dilute version if we can just get our act together and somehow mak

But more importantly, while you are right that Christianity in the general sense is not incompatible with these two scientific theories, certainly a literal interpretation of the Bible is incompatible. You'd have to do some pretty liberal stretching of Genesis to make it fit what we know about evolution. It's a pretty serious problem for Christians that their infallible sacred text contains bad theories about the natural world.

But who on earth is silly enough to take the bible literally? I was brought up a Christian, and not once did anyone tell me that the bible is a literal documentary on events, but rather a collection of stories written after they happened (especially the old testament, which is basically cobbled together from bits of the torah, and some other things). I've also not met a single Christian who takes the bible literally (and I even went to Sunday school).

The stories are a bit like the Greek myths, they have a moral or ethical point behind them, but in many cases they were written in such a way that your average peasant could understand 2000 years ago. We've developed much since then, and it would be lunacy to take their interpretation of the word of god as the literal truth.

Don't stick all Christians under your definition, personally I suspect that the Bible literalists are a predominantly American creation, for reasons that are beyond me to be honest...

But who on earth is silly enough to take the bible literally? I was brought up a Christian, and not once did anyone tell me that the bible is a literal documentary on events, but rather a collection of stories written after they happened (especially the old testament, which is basically cobbled together from bits of the torah, and some other things). I've also not met a single Christian who takes the bible literally (and I even went to Sunday school).

Allow me to introduce you, then.
Here it is from the official website of the Southern Baptist Convention(in the context of the discussion of a book outlining creation):

Therefore be it RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, June 10-12, 1980 reaffirm our belief in a literal biblical creation and a literal heaven and hell [sbc.net]
That's the 2nd largest denomination in the USA. Most of the so called Evangelical churches have also embraced it. If I were to write up a list of the churches in my town alone, I would feel completely comfortable laying money on the fact that a random selection from that list will believe in the literal interpretation of the bible.
And that is just one, albeit large, Protestant group. The Eastern Orthodox and Catholics also have sections of the bible which they believe MUST be interpreted literally, including pieces of the Old Testament. Indeed, the majority of Christians(I'd say 100%, but I'm sure there is some sect out there that says, "yeah, we're christian but we think it's all a metaphor") uphold a literal interpretation in some form. Tenets of the faith like Original Sin and the entire point of the blood sacrifice of Jesus are based on such interpretations.

And the Catholics, which are number one, don’t. Ergo your arguments fails, and we can concluded that Christian don’t believe the bible is the literal truth.

How depressing that I have to lead you through this. The parent of my post said:

But who on earth is silly enough to take the bible literally?

AND

I've also not met a single Christian who takes the bible literally (and I even went to Sunday school).

To which I replied with links to a large group of Christians who, in fact, take that very stance.
I also added that most Christian groups, including the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, have sections of the bible, including the Old Testament, which they claim have to be interpreted literally. In Catholic theology, for example, it is a tenet of the faith that Adam and Eve were actual people, and not metaphors:

That is from the papal encyclical "Humani Generis," linked from the Vatican website. And what was my claim, from my post? Let's revisit that, shall we?

The Eastern Orthodox and Catholics also have sections of the bible which they believe MUST be interpreted literally, including pieces of the Old Testament.

Well, hell, unless the Vatican is hosting fake documents on their website, then my point stands exactly as I said. As for the Eastern Orthodox, they haven't had an ecumenical council to deal the issue, so there is no single official stance on it. However, when researching the issue, I have found no Eastern Orthodox teachings which deviate strongly from this position, either. Feel free to find some contradictory information on that point. I'd find it interesting.

I had a boss who became a born-again Christian (this is in the U.S., for reference) and afterwards he would always spout on and on about how every single word in the Bible was true and there were no contradictions. I suspect a lot of what he said and what he believed was sort of passed-on to him. He would always talk about Bible groups and people who showed him movies, and it was they, for instance, who taught him that the ACLU is trying to legalize child pornography.

It's also kind of funny. Before he was "saved," he once told me that as long as people let him do his own thing, it didn't matter what they believed or did. I later expressed that view to him and he told me that was Satan's viewpoint.

You'd have to do some pretty liberal stretching of Genesis to make it fit what we know about evolution.

Not really. The creation account in Genesis has been understood by knowledgeable Bible followers as not literal since at least the 1st century BC by reading into it a mythic description of Platonic archetypes. These can, in turn, be easily made compatible with modern hard sciences, either directly or via some of its derivative versions, such as Aritotle's. So much so, in fact, that any Christian who follows some version of Aristotle's philosophy, meaning most Catholics and a ton of historic Protestants, don't mind evolution at all, ditto most branches of Judaism, the older Islamic ones etc. What doesn't necessarily mean they profess belief in it, only that they don't mind either way, as it just isn't an important subject.

The problem you guys have there in the USA with your Bible Belt Christian fundamentalists and related nutjobs is that most of its pastors, priests, reverends or whatever the favored term is nowadays are philosophically illiterate.

And what about before then? If the people originally writing it thought it to be a literal account, that's all that matters.

Maybe it's all that matters to you, but to others, not so much.:) For example, I'm a Shintoist. All, and I mean all, Shinto priests, think the creation myth as related in the Kojiki is figurative, not literal. In fact, later works collected alternate versions of the same myths, with contradictory details, and grouped them together for further study. Does it matter whether the scribe who wrote it down from legends in the 8th century thought about it? Not at all.

In any case, the Abraahamic religions always had mystic traditions. Old Judaism had the so-called "circles of prophecy", much like recent Judaism has its Khaballah. We don't know much of the specifics on what they believed, but if if they were even slightly similar to other mystic approaches, then yeah, they took it as symbolic too.

This is quite the feat of mental gymnastics. So, in order to make the reading of this text fit what we know about the world, we must read it as a description of ideas that didn't exist until after it was written. Is this some kind of joke?

It depends. If you think the works of Shakespeare can only be understood by using whatever was explicitly known in the 16th century, and that every Shakespearean department in existence where current understanding is applied to better grasp his genius are a collective joke, then yes, that one's a joke too.:)

As for serious scholars, the notion is that whatever makes things clearer and more understandable is most welcome. As Platonic archetypes make the Biblical myths extremely easy to understand, yeah, they're used. If you don't like it, well, nothing prevents you from establishing your own intellectually-poor Christian sect. It's no like there isn't some (un)healthy competition there.

But more importantly, while you are right that Christianity in the general sense is not incompatible with these two scientific theories,...

Actually, there is one incompatibility problem, which I haven't heard anyone of the religious folks address: at least in Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism humans are different from animals, because they have souls. It means that somewhere in the course of evolution there was a leap that made human-like monkeys different from "real humans" that have souls. There is no evidence that suggests this leap happened.

It is interesting though, that in some religious countries (Russia comes to mind) there is no cl

even the otherwise very conservative Catholic church has no problem with evolution or the big bang.

Not quite true. While the Catholic church famously holds that some form of evolution is "more than just a theory," they still require a literal interpretation of the existence of Adam and Eve and the subsequent "Fall." This, of course, should come as no surprise, since the whole point of the later human sacrifice of Jesus is predicated upon that primordial event.

The 'Inalienable rights' statement is in the Declaration of Independence, not the constitution.

'Creator' or 'God' is not mentioned in the constitution. Article IV does state:

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

And, of course, the first amendment states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Besides, fundamentalist christians should have no problem with a seperation of church and state. The bible explicitly tells them to render unto rome what is rome's and to god what is god's. I'm sure every last fundamentalist preacher and religious order in America voluntarily pays taxes, even though they are exempt by law. If they don't render unto the government what is due, they are not following the word of god and are hypocrites. I'm sure none of them ever do anything hypocritical!

Rights that have their basis just in mortal reason can always be bent to whatever a person or persons feel is appropriate.

Except that this is exactly what was happening all the time throughout the history and also happening now.

It also works both ways: anybody can claim that the right X is not god given and you can go fuck yourself. Which also was happening all the time throughout the history and happening now. For example, see religious arguments against gay marriage.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but doesn't the bible say that god made the entire Universe and everything in it in 6 days? So if you believed in that wouldn't you be in direct conflict with science, the big bang theory and evolution?

I think -- in Europe anyway -- even most Christians; even priests and bishops; believe that the 6 days thing is a metaphor, or that "day" is a figure of speech for some long period of time.

Actually literally believing that man was created 518400 seconds after the heaven and earth, that's for extra special loonies.

religion as one of the most arbitrary labels by which people divide themselves when involved in conflict

He's got it backward here -- it's one of the least arbitrary labels, since it reveals what underlying philosophy and values we stand for. It's similar to wars breaking out between existentialists and determinists, but we've found more interesting ways to encapsulate those philosophies in mythological symbolism.

He's got it backward here -- it's one of the least arbitrary labels, since it reveals what underlying philosophy and values we stand for.

Its pretty much as arbitrary as most other identity labels; it is neither "one of the least arbitrary" (as you put it), or one of the "most arbitrary" (as TFS -- incorrectly, incidentally, as the transcript shows -- characterizes Dawkins position. Dawkins, characterizes identity labels in general as arbitrary, and characterizes religion as both "the principal" label used i

For a website with so many coders, it should be obvious all religious texts are Basic HomoSapiens software hacks.Viral reproduction, root access(Externalized authority), disabling malware-detectors(Will believe bullshit), it's all in there. Suxnet.

Hitler directed his Nazi propaganda apparatus to find a way to, in effect, replace "Christmas" with "Hitler Day". This objective is not indicative of a genuine Christian belief.

But, nonetheless, Hitler's use of a Christian "us" identity (including the pressure his regime exerted on Christian Churches) and a non-Christian (and, most significantly, Jewish) "them" identity (targetting not only actual Jews, but also tarring other enemies with association with Jews, through portrayals of both conscious colla

Depends. If you define Christian as "one who believes christ was the son of god and came to save mankind", then Hitler was most definately not a Christian.

We're discussing Dawkins comments about the role of religious identity as an arbitrary basis to divide people into "us" and "them". Arguing that Hitler failed to meet any particular theological criteria for being a faithful Christian is not helpful to the attempt to refute Dawkins characterization; indeed, it would seem to undermine the argument that re

The problem is, many Christians wouldn't agree with that definition. Many Christians, especially in the USA, do not fit this. Most Americans define being Christian as attending a church that reveres Christ in some way. They don't necessarily believe anything said there, but still label themselves Christians. In that way, Hitler was a good Christian, in that he went to church and observed holy days.

The problem with this objection, in contrast to where it actually applies, is that Christianity actually has specific documented definition and norms.

That there is debate regarding particular points, does not make it an analogous "Scotsman" context any more than it would for physics.

I was about to mod you "Funny", but I realized you might not be kidding. Definitions of "Christian" are just as open to interpretation as the underlying religious texts. Go ask some southern baptists if Mormons and Catholics are Christians.

Your argument is "Hitler was not a True Christian because no True Christian would do what Hitler did." Irrespective of whether Hitler was a practicing member of the religious community, had the full support of his church, or justified his actions with Christianity.

Puritans weren't fans of Christmas either (it was even banned in Boston for several decades in the 17th century), I suppose you're going to tell me they were not Christian? That's the point... Christianity is actually rather nebulous, which is why there have been so many schisms and heresies, and there are tens of thousands of sects. The fact remains that Hitler spoke of things like 'doing God's work' and the NSDAP colluded with Catholic hierarchies. In fact, after the war was over, the primary conduit for German war criminals to escape the Allies was the Catholic church, whose agents concealed, protected and ferried such criminals to South America.

have been both a Christian and an Atheist at different points in my life, so have a different perspective than most. Folks like Dawkins tend to be the loudest, but are the most ineffective at changing mids. If I were writing a play book for the Atheist movement, I would instruct all influential Atheists to model Michio Kaku. Dr. Kaku rarely strays into religous discussion, may make peripheral comments but doesn't seek to create a lot of controversy. Instead, he sticks to the main points of what he is proficient at and gives people, even those who are Christian or Muslim, someone to want to emulate. It becomes apparent that he is a non-believer in God, but doesn't alienate those who begin with a diferent viewpoint. Focus on living the life you should and people will follow.

I'd make a similar argument to Christians. Don't try to be like Ann Coultier or Rush Limbaugh. Like your lives like Mother Teresa who instructed people "to find your own Calcutta". Focus on living the life you should and people will follow.

-- MyLongNickName(Slashdot keeps logging me out when I leave the main page)

I cannot believe the kind of false equivalency you just shoved out there. You just compared Dr. Dawkins who publishes well researched biological and philosophical books and levels disagreements with the religious against Coulter who literally calls for the outright slaughter(on multiple occasions) of those she disagrees with, and Limbaugh who makes a profession out of repeatedly misrepresenting facts. That's completely unreasonable.

You make it seem like having publicly stated atheist opinions is somehow equally vitriolic as calling for the murder of those you disagree with. This is why people like Dawkins speak out, because right now, its perfectly acceptable to equate atheists with monsters.

As much as Dawkins may get a little direct, considering the treatment he has been subjected to by some of the True Believers, it's little wonder he says things the way he does. Coreligionists of True Believers seem to be quick to attack Dawkins, but slow to admit that some among them are purely immoral vicious bastards.

Or as some holy guy who lived in Palestine once said: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"

Thank you for saying this. I am a Christian.... However, what makes me remain a Christian is... the moral code that Jesus taught. It's an ideal to strive towards.... "Turn the other cheek." If more people lived life to that moral code, the world would be a better place....

Anyway, that's my belief. I try not to force it on anyone, but Atheists who attempt to force their beliefs on the world irritate me.

I'm an Atheist and I agree with you almost 100%, though I get pretty strident at times.

The reason is that some Christians are being very successful in the US at forcing their beliefs on others through the legal system. Abstinence only sex-ed, restricting access to birth control, denying gay marriage, trying to redefine the US as a Christian nation, removing Thomas Jefferson from text books, putting disclaimer labels on text books or even adding "Intelligent Design" as an alternative theory (that has never made a single verifiable claim, nor led to a single discovery.) As an Atheist, the influence that fundamentalists have over people's day to day lives is appalling.

Right now, in parts of Africa that are suffering an AIDS epidemic, Christians and Catholics from around the world are promoting abstinence only "education" and spreading lies and misinformation about condom usage. Again, that is appalling and will result in much more spreading of AIDS, and much more suffering. I know that it is not representative of all Christians, but in the US the moderates all seem to be giving the fundamentalist a pass.

So what your left with is a bunch of pissed off Atheist because apparently no one religious wants to question the effectiveness our morality of other sects of their religion.

...because you'd sound pretty fucking crazy sitting in a flying airplane denying Newtonian physics and most every man-made object in the modern world relies on chemistry to make it -- plastics, composites, even metals.

Those two fields start out so far ahead in working, every day examples of their basic truths that challenging their more exotic variants seems risky and many of them are too complex for the drooling religious zealots to even begin to criticize.

Evolution doesn't have those kind of concrete, hands-on examples in every day life (well, OK it does, but...). To most people it's been distilled down to MAN USED TO BE A MONKEY AND GOD DIDN'T CREATE HIM BECAUSE THERE IS NO GOD AND THAT MEANS GAY MARRIAGE IS OK and they just can't accept that.

I don't think it is. In his own book, The God Delusion, he gives an example of a PhD Paleontologist who ignored all his education so that he could believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible.

Then there are the folks, like my father in law (BSME Texas A&M) who will say that current evidence _may_ show that humans evolved on this planet but one day there will be evidence that shows that we were put here. I am not joking or exaggerating. He uses science's own thinking to "show" that they may be wrong.

All the education in the World will not change the opinion of someone who puts their fingers in their ears and yells, "La la la la la la la...".

Religion is all about people's emotional "thinking". When you ask a believer, their "proof" of God or whatever eventually boils down to a feeling. They "know" He exists and by "know" they're talking about their feeling.

It's that irrational trap humans fall into all the time and they confuse it with rational thought.

Human beings are good at putting up mental walls, in order to ignore necessary contradictions in their thinking.

That's why it's possible to have geologists doing mainstream work, while simultaneously believing in creationism. They just put up a barrier in their heads, and don't think about both things at once.

I do genuinely wonder how many religious people, at some level, know that their "belief" isn't true, but behave as if it is, because they feel the world is a better place if everyone acts as if it's tr

If you haven't seen it, search out Asimov's essay, The Relativity of Wrong. It says a lot about how people fall into this line of thinking (science was wrong before, over and over again, so it's probably wrong now too) and does a good job pointing out the absurdity of it in a way that most people can understand. The zinger that most sticks with me has always been "When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was a sphere, they were wrong too. But if you think th

I find his comments to be interesting and insightful, but there's a sort of "why aren't people as smart as me?" arrogance behind it all.

I guess there's no reason someone can't be right AND insufferable.

It's altogether too easy (and becoming a little tiresome) to point at the excesses of religion and say "look how stupid that is". One can also point to the ample number of murders committed with guns and knives, yet it would be asinine to suggest that guns and knives are therefore valueless.

PERSONALLY, I suspect that religious faith has lost its attraction to the West largely because we have little to fear. We eat well, we live long mostly-healthy lives, we have comprehensive social systems that by and large will care for us regardless. We have little expectation that a passing famine, plague, or war will kill us, our children, or our community. Why would we NEED Faith or hope that a Supreme Being has some sort of great plan to explain some horrific tragedy we've suffered?

It's when life hands us inexplicables that we (as a species) resort to (as Dawkins might put it) contrived systems of belief, in order to try to put a human-comprehensible face on the unfeeling universe. Voltaire would call it Pangloss.

I don't know that this is bad. Genuine hope is a significant predictor of success in otherwise-hopeless situations. Faith can be a moral rudder in times of chaos and change. Sure, it can be (and has been) abused as a justification for horrible conduct and brutality. But it seems to me that humans in general are capable of ample brutality with or without the pastiche excuse of religious doctrine, so I'm hard put to BLAME such conduct on Faith.

Back when the Tunisian uprisings started, and then started in Libya and Egypt the crowds on the street were carrying around posters of Mark Zuckerberg because Facebook would let them communicate and coordinate and let the world know what was going on. That was a full embrace of freedom of speech, and I even started to build a Twitter encryption tool to help make it even easier to for people to communicate freely (More complete projects have come out since *).

This was also right around the time of the State Dept WikiLeaks reveal, and instead of talking about how we need to encourage freedom of speech, and the press and assembly, Secretary Clinton made a big speech about the primary and absolute need for elections for a democratic transition in these countries. The ground could have been laid then that this was an expression of the peoples rights and take it as an opportunity to have an open accepting forum of competing ideas and that it was OK to have disagreeing views as long as everyone could express themselves.

Instead we got badly run elections more than a year later with the military pushing people around, and women mostly shut out of the process. And, no automatic thinking that uncomfortable ideas can at least be heard. As long as you have freedom of speech you can try to change the system. When that is gone certain changes become impossible. It was a huge missed opportunity to change attitudes about speech.

Also, you don't understand what evolution is. Evolution says what happens *AFTER LIFE STARTED TO EXIST* and how it changes over time. How those original life forms were created is an entirely different theory.

You don't need to believe in abiogenesis in order to believe in evolution. When people say that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming, they're not talking about abiogenesis. They're talking about the evidence for there having been periods billions of years ago when there were only single-celled organisms, and the evolution of those organisms into the complex life we have today.

If you like, you can imagine that a deity put life into those primitive origins.

Nonetheless abiogenesis seems plausible to me, and there have been experiments that demonstrate the processes that may have set things off. Look for the Miller-Urey Experiment, for a classic. Bear in mind that to go from primordial soup to single-cells, we're talking about a handful of freak occurrences, each one some 40 million years apart.

Google Venter and synthetic bacteria. They already made a synthetic genome from raw chemicals and created a new species by putting the genome into an empty cell. Does this not even create any doubt in your scientific mind that this is just as possible as curing cancer? My bet is we will create synthetic life from scratch a long time before we find a cure for cancer.

Not to mention that if you have mutation, selection and replication, it's all-but-impossible for evolution *not* to happen. Once you have a single-celled organism with those properties, in an environment ready for colonisation, the evolution of complex organisms to exploit that environment is inevitable.

Getting that single-celled organism in the first place, that's more of a mystery, but there are several plausible non-religious theories.

Very true. Religion is only one of the tribal markers used to determine "us" vs. "them". It's what irritates me about the oft repeated claim "most wars are caused by religion." Religion is a useful tool for convincing people to kill their fellow man, but so is political ideology, nationalism, and more fundamentally, potable water, arable land, oil, gold, Lebensraum, and so on. If you analyze most wars, causation is almost always economic in nature.